WORKPLACE : Fullerton Spanish Course Popular With Managers

A typical manager in Southern California these days may have a Japanese boss and supervise factory workers who speak mostly Spanish, Korean or Vietnamese.

Spanish still is the most prevalent foreign language on factory floors across Orange County, so it’s easy to see why one of the most popular classes at Fullerton College’s Professional Development Institute is called “Spanish for Managers.”

In the year the community college has been offering the class, it has attracted managers from the County Department of Education, a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Anaheim, the city of Anaheim and “quite a few hospitals,” says Kim Sullivan, program manager for the Professional Development Institute.

The institute’s most popular course is an English as a second language class, taught to factory workers at their plants. But right behind it is the Spanish course for managers.

“Management still wants to be in charge,” says Sullivan, “and that means learning Spanish as a supervisory tool, so as a manager you don’t feel your employees are one up on you.

“If they know you can understand what they’re saying when they speak Spanish to each other, you increase your control of the workplace.”

The class is taught by Bill Harvey, author of “Spanish for Gringos.” A quick course in rudimentary Spanish, the class can be taken in one seven-hour-long meeting or one two-hour meeting a week over six weeks.

The course is offered at the college or, if a business has enough people interested, the class will come to the workplace, says Sullivan.